ReportCaster Enhancements for WebFOCUS 7.1

By Vincent Lam

WebFOCUS 7.1 has an abundance of new features and enhancements designed to make use of the product a more satisfying experience. The improvements include the addition of MySQL support to ReporCaster as well as support for leading LDAP platforms.

In this article, I will give you a sneak peak at some of the additions we’ve made to ReportCaster.

MySQL

MySQL is a popular open-source database with heavy usage in the Linux market. In fact, most distributions of Linux are bundled with a copy of MySQL. With that in mind, it comes as no surprise that we have periodically received requests for MySQL support in ReportCaster.

In the new release of ReportCaster, MySQL has been certified for use as its database repository. This certification also includes installations that include the Report Library feature. ReportCaster is certified for use specifically with MySQL 4.1.9 using the MySQL Java™ Connector 3.1.6 JDBC driver set (see Screen 1).

Screen 1

LDAP

Customers with significant investments in LDAP infrastructures can now leverage their installations with ReportCaster because Release 7.1 supports industry standard LDAP platforms, including Microsoft Active Directory and Netscape.

So what new functionality is added when ReportCaster is integrated with LDAP?

LDAP User Authentication

In previous releases, ReportCaster offered two separate options for the location of its user repository. Self-service ReportCaster installations used the ReportCaster Repository while Managed Reporting installations used the Managed Reporting repository.

With the new LDAP integration features in 7.1, administrators now have the third option of using an LDAP server in self-service ReportCaster installations. All user logon authentications to ReportCaster are sent straight to the LDAP server. With this setup, ReportCaster user administration can be managed using existing LDAP tools.

Customers can customize ReportCaster to use a specific user ID map based on their particular LDAP setup. Coupled with the User Filter functionality provided, ReportCaster offers LDAP integration with flexibility.

LDAP Address Book Search

Users of ReportCaster are familiar with the flexibility and advantages of e-mail distribution and notifications. In ReportCaster 7.1, e-mail destinations can be looked up from LDAP using an individual’s first or last name, or e-mail address.

For instance, let’s say we want to e-mail Kathy Squires and the sales team our daily report. In this case, we know that they both start with the letter S.

ReportCaster returns to us the e-mail addresses in LDAP that meet our criteria (Screen 2). With a few clicks of the mouse, we are able to insert both addresses as e-mail destinations for our report.

Screen 2

Voila! The new address book search automatically places the selected e-mail addresses in the invoked field along with the necessary separator between addresses.

Accessing this new address book functionality is easily accomplished in ReportCaster by clicking the address book icon located to the right of e-mail address fields.

Note: ReportCaster’s new LDAP features can be used independently of each other. For example, it is possible to not use the LDAP authentication feature while using the LDAP Address Book feature.

Summary

LDAP integration and MySQL support are only a few of the additions we’ve made with the new release of WebFOCUS and ReportCaster. ReportCaster users will notice many other small and large improvements as well. We will discuss those in future articles of the Newsletter.